By Grace Roberts

If you have had any exposure to Instagram, Pinterest, or Tumblr in the last few years you are likely to have come across various pictures of what appears to be billboards sporting messages like “Your oldest fears are the worst ones” or buildings with “All things are delicately interconnected” illuminated across their faces. Simple and powerful, these loaded phrases and their unique locations have made their way onto all kinds of social media sites because of their aesthetic and often due to their relevance to current events. What you may not have seen mentioned on these posts, however, is the woman behind them: Jenny Holzer. An artist who is no stranger to the power of the written word and a master of presentation, she has been present in the public spaces of New York City for decades and has been featured in museums and exhibits around the globe. But why is she making a comeback now, and why are her pieces more pertinent to us than ever before? In a generation obsessed with instant gratification and online presence, her art is accessible, unique, and incredibly shareable. I believe this recent fascination of Holzer is a look into how we’re redefining art in a digital age and the power that comes with being able to share it with the world.

Although she’s had a major comeback in recent years due to the relevance and regram-able nature of her pieces, Jenny Holzer has been a major player in the art world since the 1980’s. Born in Ohio, she attended several art schools and became most known for her involvement with Colab, a New York City artists collaborative projects group, becoming part of a group of artists who sought to bring art into public spaces to bring awareness and attention to the feminist movement and other social campaigns. Holzer’s art falls into the category of the neo-conceptual, using words and text to make up her art and design. She seeks to create a narrative through text and delivery, a commentary on social injustice or worldwide issues that, at their core, are messages for the individual, for self-reflection and discovery. The words that flash across these massive installations aren’t targeted at a specific group, they’re universal reminders conveyed through universal modes of communication; some of her more popular installations mimic billboards or street graffiti, making them blend into the art that already covers most of New York City. LEDs have been one of Holzer’s signature mediums, beginning back in the 1980’s and becoming more complex as technology has grown in the last several decades. She uses light often as a sculptural medium as well, forming her text in light and displaying it to create unmissable messages.

Her “Truisms” are famous for being publicly displayed on billboards and across high-rise buildings, sporting sayings like “Protect me from what I want”. Holzer’s installations are often massive, splayed across block-long office buildings or projected on the faces of high-rises, but they are equally subtle, messages printed on park benches or posters plastered on underpass walls. There is a certain accessibility to her art, available for everyone to see and not always displayed with the intention of recognition—Holzer has done a lot of anonymous work, and although you can find many of her pieces in places like Tate or the Guggenheim, her priority has always been in the message, not necessarily the prestige.

Today, Holzer’s art is relevant and appealing in a way I don’t think even she was able to fully anticipate. We read thousands of words a day, tweets, advertisements, pop-ups, and text messages, and the power of the written word has grown with the need to make things interesting and eye-catching with only a glance, so Holzer’s art has never fit in with our culture quite like it does now. She is simultaneously trendy and timeless—I find it hard to believe that her work will ever go out of style, but rather ebb and flow, especially as social issues arise and are solved. She has always had the ability to craft her work around the social constructs that constitute public life, working from her early roots in activism to bring attention to modern feminism, voting campaigns, and the movement against gun violence. Her work’s relevance to current events is one of my favorite aspects of her art, as it feels like it properly bridges the line between visual entertainment and calls to action. Her get-out-the-vote campaign for the 2020 election seemed so emotionally charged to me that I didn’t really know whether to sit and reflect on the piece or to be stirred to get my ballot in immediately.

In these projects particularly, Holzer has mastered the part of art that makes you stop and stare and sacrificed the part where you wonder what on earth it could possibly mean—her art is bold and its meaning is clear. Holzer holds her audience accountable, working to make viewers ask questions of themselves, a skill I think is rare in art as I think the reverse, people being made to ask questions of the art, is much more common. I also think her work with specific organizations is so important because it really stresses the public nature of her art, exhibiting an active involvement in society and in the community instead of simply commenting on it. Holzer’s legacy will not only exist in the artistic world but in the world of activism and the fight for betterment, which I think says a lot about her as a person and an artist.

Our desire just for the short and sweet makes Holzer’s art incredibly on-brand from a trend standpoint—there’s no doubt someone’s Instagram post with a poignant piece of her text on a park bench or billboard has gone viral. In reference to her Truisms, Holzer has said, “In the Truisms, I wanted to write clichés and I was successful. You only have a few seconds to catch people, so you can’t do long, reasoned arguments.” This idea of concision and attention-grabbing statements is at the core of Holzer’s renaissance—we are a generation who value brevity and candor, if only because our attention spans no longer allow for prolonged viewing. Her ability to pack meaning into a line or few short sentences paired with her eye-catching installation style make her the perfect artist for our modern taste.

Holzer’s artistic impact on current art and visual media trends can already be seen in the real world and online, too. I’m reminded of the incredibly popular @We’reNotReallyStrangers Instagram account, who paint messages like “your anxiety is lying to you” across buses and hang banners emblazoned with “how are you, really?” across bridges, then post it to their Instagram, which boasts a follower count of over four million users. It’s a mix of teenage angst and self-help hope that’s marketed to this online generation, but it rings true for anyone who has ever experienced joy and loss, which is what leads me to believe that this sort of art will always be relevant to the public and to everyone who has access to it. I have no doubt that Holzer’s art will continue to inspire future generations to make art accessible and relevant, and although there’s much to be said about the portrayal of art across social media, I think Holzer is an inspiration to artists everywhere and a testament to our modern ability to share the art that moves us.

ST.ART does not own the rights to any images used in this article.